Thursday, April 12, 2012

Virginia Duathlon - Race report

Here we go. My Second Duathlon.

Sunday, April 1st.

It was located at Chippokes Plantation State Park in Surry, VA. Surry is directly across the James River from Jamestown. In fact you can see Busch Gardens from the shore.Anyway, this is a very rural area and luckily for us there is a campground right there at the State Park. As a family, we love to camp so it was a no brainer. This was going to be my second duathlon that I would participate in and I was looking forward to it. This particular event was a 5k run, 24 mile bike and a 5k run. My goal time that I was shooting for was 2 1/2 hours. I figured that I should be able to do the bike in about an hour and a half leaving me an hour combined time for the two 5ks. The corals were as follows: Male 45 and younger, Male 46 and older, All Females, All teams.So here we go. The first 5k. I was feeling really good, and I knew that I was going to get this first run done in under a half hour, what I was not expecting was to actually get a PR. My official time was 26:33, however I did not know this at the time. I was in transition and trying not to trip over myself as I get ready for my bike. My wife was cheering me on and I think she might have asked me what my time was. I just said, "don't know".I switched my shoes out, got my helmet on and buckled it, removed my bike from the block and started moving out of transition. I was feeling good.Off we go on the bike course. I actually drove the course the day before so I was somewhat familiar on what to expect. The route was clearly marked with the turns to take plus there were police at the major intersections helping us out. This was a very flat course so I really was not sure how I was going to do. I have been able to ride 8 miles in about a half hour over a somewhat hilly W&OD (Washington and Old Dominion) trail so given that I was going to have to constantly be pedaling to move myself forward I was not sure if I was going to be able to keep that pace up for 23 miles. Well I completed the bike in 1:19:59.02. I saw this on my watch before I reset it for the run. I was well ahead of my goal but at the time I did not know how far.Now for the second transition and the final run. I dismount from my bike and half expecting to fall flat on my face from my legs giving out I was quite surprised at how well they felt. I was able to jog into transition instead of a quick walk. (On the very big plus side the transition was on grass so I did not have to worry about walking/running in my bike shoes on the road surface.) I rack my bike, un-clip and remove helmet, switch out my shoes and away I go.I start out the second run a little faster then my jog into transition after the bike. I wanted to move slowly at first to get into a rhythm before trying to lay down the hammer. What was nice about the run was that it went into the campground so I was able to see my family at the turn around, that was motivation. A secondary goal that I had was not to walk any part of the second run. I accomplished that. I did, however, have to stop to tie my shoe, that made me mad. Anyway, here I come up to the 3 mile mark and around the bend into the home stretch. I look up at the clock and I am very happy. I cross the line in a gun time of: 2:19:27.79 and a chip time of: 2:19:21.75 I was well over my goal and I felt really good afterwards, a little tired but not too sore. Which makes me wonder if I was selling myself short on my goal time.The first duathlon I did was in Columbia, MD back in Aug 2011. It was a 2 mile run, 26 mile bike and 4 mile run. I did that in 2:53:43 it was a hillier bike course then the one in Surry.They had a fantastic BBQ party after the event. We then packed up our trailer to go home. Pam, my wife, drove home and I slept most of the way.So for my records, there were 24 finishers in my age group. I finished 18th. There were 189 males and I finished 108th. There were 343 finishers and I finished in 135th place overall.